Crayon Cupcake Candles!

The struggle to write this post is so real.Mainly because, I start gushing over how cute the candles look every time I start writing. More importantly because, they combine two of my absolute favorite things – candles and cupcakes! Seriously, if you walk around my home, you would see candles in every room. And if you see me day dreaming with a smile on my face, it means I’m thinking of cupcakes. So, when we started working on this DIY, I was both excited and nervous. See for yourself and tell me what you think of the end result!

If you don’t have silicon cupcake liners, that’s completely fine. You can use regular liners. But, make sure to double or triple them up and put them in the metal holder. So that the wax doesn’t soak through the paper. Make sure to set these up, before you start working on the steps.

Steps:

1. Add a little wax and a broken up crayon to the ladle. The crayons are basically used to add some color to the wax, as they have a sharp color of their own. But, otherwise they are not a substitute for the wax.

Tip: I did not have wax chips when I started. So, we just cut up an old white candle and rounded up used candles from the house.

2. Hold the ladle over a very low flame for a minute or so, till the wax is half-molten. Then turn of the flame. The rest of the wax will melt in about 30 seconds.

Alternate: If you’re uncomfortable with working on a stove, you can put the wax in dixie cups and place them in the micro for a few minutes. It has the same impact.

3. Once the wax has melted, carefully tip it into the silicon or paper liners. Try to avoid the edges of the liners, as much as possible.

For silicon cupcake liners

For paper cupcake liners

4. After 2 minutes, once the wax has hardened a bit, add a small wick to the candle. Unlike this picture, aim for the center of the candle.

5. Leave the candle to solidify for a few hours. Or if you’re impatient like me, leave it in the freezer for a few minutes. This will speed up the process a lot. (It’s not recommended to do this, but at a pinch, it will work)

6. Once the candle has solidified, you can remove the paper lined candles from the metal holder easily. However, for the silicon cupcake liners, you will need to pop the candle out. This is done by gentling folding the sides of the liners outwards. If the candle is solid, it will pop out easily.

7. Cut off the extra bit of the wick and trip the edge of the candle with a knife.

Bonus: You can also make the silicon ones in two colors! The extra steps for those are,

Melt a smaller quantity of wax to start with and pour that into the silicon cupcake holder.

Let it solidify a bit and add the wick.

Meanwhile, quickly make a second batch of colored wax.

Once the candle and the wick have become semi solid, pour in the second batch of wax.

Things to keep in mind: (this is going to be a long list)

Don’t mix up too many colors. It looks weird after melting.

Work with an adult, if you’re under 16. No burnt hands or cut fingers, please.

This gets messy! So put newspapers in your workspace or you’ll be scraping wax for hours. Been there, done that.

If you’re using an old candle which already has a color, you can use it without the crayons. But, it’s best to add a small crayon when melting it. As it makes the color of the wax much sharper.

The icing part of the cupcake can be both simple or difficult. Difficult, if you make custom molds for the icing and attach them to the top of the cupcake. Or, you can go with the simple route and use a golden sharpie to color over the top.

If you’re making the double color ones, don’t wait for the first batch of wax to be completely solid. Pour in the second batch of wax, when the first one is semi-solid. If you wait too long, the two layers won’t merge and if you don’t wait at all, the wax will just mix.

I know this seems like a lot, but once you start working, it’s quite easy. So, don’t let my lists scare you.

Would you love to have these candles? Do you have suggestions for the icing? What colors work the best? We have a lot of questions, tell us your thoughts in the comments below! – PA